953 



ZUCCARELLI, FRANCESCO. 



ZUCCARO, TADDEO AND FEDERIGO. 



961 



Many of bis works have been translated into French ; and in English 

 we have bis ' Goldenthal,' a tale ; 'Der Goldmachersdorf ; ' 'Love's 

 Stratagem,' and otber tales; 'The History of Switzerland;' a volume 

 of select essays ; and the ' Stunden der Andacht,' under the title of 

 ' Hours of Meditation and Reflection.' 



ZUCCARELLI, or ZUCCHERELLI, FRANCESCO, a distinguished 

 Italian landscape-painter, born at Pitigliano, near Florence, in 1702. 

 He first studied figure-painting, but he eventually decided upon fol- 

 lowing landscape-painting, in which his first instructor was Paolo 

 Anesi, at Florence. He afterwards went to Rome and continued his 

 studies with Morandi, and lastly with Pietro Nelli. Zuccarelli 

 established himself at Venice, but he acquired in time, through 

 Smith's prints, after his works, so great a reputation in England, that 

 he was induced to visit this country in 1752, and his success was 

 such as to satisfy the most sanguine expectations. At the institution 

 of the Royal Academy in 1768 he was elected one of the members, 

 and is accordingly one of those who are considered its founders. 

 Several of his pictures have been engraved by Vivares. The figures 

 in them were painted by himself ; and " it has been remarked," says 

 Edwards, " that among the figures which he introduced in his land- 

 scapes, he frequently represented one with a gourd-bottle at his waist, 

 as is often seen in Italy. This is said to have been done intentionally, 

 as a sort of pun on his own name, Zucco being the Italian word for 

 .gourd." 



In 1759 Zuccarelli painted a set of designs for tapestries, which 

 were executed by the king's tapestry-weaver, Paul Saunders, for the 

 Earl of Egremont's house in Piccadilly. He painted many creditable 

 pictures in England, but they are generally very inferior to those he 

 painted in Venice, and to which he was indebted for his reputation 

 and the fortune he made in this country. His latter works are cold in 

 colouring, want harmony, and are artificial in their composition; 

 there are some specimens at Hampton Court. Zuccarelli however in 

 his time reigned over the public taste in England ; and the chief cause 

 of Wilson's want of success was because he did not imitate him. 



In 1773 he returned to Florence, and he gave up painting, having 

 resolved to pass the remainder of his life in quiet retirement; the 

 suppression however by the Emperor of Austria of a monastery, on 

 the security of which he had advanced money, deprived him of his 

 property. This misfortune compelled him to resume the pencil, and 

 he found sufficient employment from the English gentlemen who 

 visited Florence, where he continued to paint until his death in 1788. 

 He etched some plates after Andrea del Sarto. 



(Lanzi, Storia Pittorica^ &c. ; Edwards, Anecdotes of Painting, tfcc.) 



ZU'CCARO, TADDEO and FEDERI'GO, two celebrated Italian 

 historical painters, were the sons of Ottaviano Zuccaro, an obscure 

 painter, and were born at S. Angelo in Vado. 



TADDEO ZUCCARO, was born in 1529. He studied first with Pompeo 

 da Fano, and afterwards with Giacomone da Faenza. He went early 

 to Rome, and became a very popular painter, for the reason, says 

 Lanzi, that there is nothing in his works that the populace cannot 

 understand or imagine it understands. His pictures are compositions 

 of portraits, simply disposed, dressed in the costume of his time, have 

 little variety of character, and he rarely introduced the naked figure, 

 but when he did it was natural and simple. 



His early life according to Vasari, who writes his name Zucchero 

 was one of extreme hardship. He left his father's house at the age of 

 fourteen, and set out alone for Rome. When he arrived there he 

 found himself friendless and houseless, and he was forced to seek 

 employment as a colour-grinder, but in this way he added little to his 

 means, and he was for some time comparatively destitute. He passed 

 many of his nights in the streets of Rome, sleeping among the ancient 

 ruins, or under the porches of the modern palaces or churches; and 

 after much perseverance, he was at last compelled by excessive priva- 

 tion to return to his father's house, there to recruit his shattered con- 

 stitution, for, gays Vasari, he had been living upon his youth ; but 

 during all this period he let pass no opportunity that occurred of 

 improving himself in drawing. As soon as he had recovered his 

 strength he returned with renewed courage to Rome, and this time 

 his exertions met with a different reward. He attracted the notice of 

 Daniello da Parrna, who had painted some years with Correggio and 

 Parmigiano, and who took Taddeo with him to Alvito near Sora, where 

 he was about to paint a chapel in fresco. The experience he acquired 

 in this work was of great value to him, and although only in his 

 eighteenth year, he returned to Rome in 1548 a good fresco-painter, 

 and he gave a proof of his ability by the frescoes in chiaroscuro which 

 he executed on the faade of the house of Jacobo Mattei, illustrating 

 the life of Furius Camillus. From this time he found steady employ- 

 ment, and executed many vast works, good, bad, and indifferent, at 

 Rome and elsewhere. He painted several frescoes for the Duke of 

 Urbino, for Pope Julius III., and for Pope Paul IV. ; but his greatest 

 works were those which he painted for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese 

 at Caprarola ; his best works at Rome are some frescoes in the church 

 of the Consolazione. 



The paintings of Caprarola illustrating the glories of the Farnese 

 family were engraved in 45 plates by J. J. Prenner, and were published 

 in Rome in 1748-50, in folio ; and there is a description of the paint- 

 ings and the palace by L. Sebastiani, ' Descrizione e Relazione Istorica 

 del real Palazzo di Caprarola/ published also at Rome in 1741. 



Taddeo died at Rome on the 2nd of September 1566, aged thirty- 

 seven years and a day, and he was buried by the side of Raffaelle in 

 the church of Santa Maria della Rotondo, or the Pantheon, at Rome. 



FEDERIUO ZUCCARO, Taddeo's brother and; pupil, was born at Sant' 

 Angelo in Vado, in 1543. He was given to the charge of hia brother 

 at Rome when very young. Taddeo's numerous occupations gave 

 Federigo great advantages, and he was early employed by his brother 

 as an assistant. Federigo completed the works which Taddeo had 

 left incomplete. He painted much in a similar style to that of 

 Taddeo, but he was in every respect inferior to him, except in success 

 and in the quantity and exteusiveness of his works ; his drawing was 

 inferior, his compositions were more crowded, and there was generally 

 more affectation in his style. He was invited by the Grand-Duke 

 Francesco I. to Florence to paint the cupola of the cathedral, which 

 had been commenced by Vasari. He there painted, says Lanzi, more 

 than 300 figures 50 feet high, with a Lucifer so large, to use his own 

 words, that the other figures appeared like babies. He boasted that 

 they were the largest figures known, but, continues Lanzi, beyond 

 their vastness they had nothing to recommend them. When Pietro 

 da Cortona was in Florence there was a project to replace them by 

 some works of that painter, but on account of the greatness of the 

 undertaking, it was feared that he might not live long enough to com- 

 plete it, and Federigo's works were not disturbed. 



After this great work Federigo enjoyed a reputation which surpassed 

 the fame of all his contemporaries, and he was recalled to Rome by 

 Gregory XIII. to paint the ceiling of the Cappella Paolina in the 

 Vatican. During the progress of this work he had a quarrel with some 

 of the papal courtiers who brought various accusations against him, 

 and to avenge himself he imitated the example of Apelles of Ephesus 

 (Luciau, 'De Calumnia'), and painted a picture of calumny, in which 

 he introduced the portraits of his accusers with asses' ears, and placed 

 the picture on St. Luke's day over the door of the church of that 

 saint. This proceeding was represented and gave offence to the pope, 

 and Federigo was compelled to leave Rome immediately, to avoid the 

 consequences. The picture in question is not the one he painted after 

 Lucian's description of that of Apelles of Ephesus ; this was painted 

 in distemper on canvas, for the Orsini family ; and it is, or was lately, 

 in the Palazzo Lante ; there is an engraving of it by Cornelius Cort. 

 It is one of Federigo's best works. 



After this event he went to Flanders, where he made some cartoons 

 for tapestries; then to Holland, and thence came to England in 1574. 

 Here he painted the portrait of Queen Elizabeth, and that of Mary 

 Queen of Scots, which is at Chiswick, and which Vertue engraved. 

 He painted a second portrait of Elizabeth in a sort of Persian dress, 

 which is at Hampton Court, on which there is a scroll with the 

 following verses attributed to Spenser, but which Walpole conjectures 

 are by Elizabeth herself: 



" The restless swallow fits my restlesse mind, 

 In still revivinge, still renewinge wrongs ; 

 Her just complaints of cruelty unkinde 

 Are all the musique that my life prolongs. 

 "With pensive thoughts my weeping stag I crown, 

 Whose melancholy teares my cares expresse ; 

 His teares in silence and my sighes unknown 

 Are all the physicke that my harmes redresse. 

 My only hope was in this goodly tree, 

 Which I did plant in love, hring up in care, 

 But all in vaine, for now to late I see 

 The shales [shells] he mine, the kernels others are. 

 My musique may be plaintes, my musique teares, 

 If this be all the fruit my love-tree beares." 



Federigo painted likewise the portrait of Sir Nicholas Bacon at 

 Woburn, and those of Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham, lord high 

 admiral ; and Elizabeth's giant porter, now at Hampton Court. Wal- 

 pole had a portrait of Sir Francis Walsingham by him. 



He did not remain long in England ; he was soon forgiven and 

 recalled by the pope, and he returned to Rome and finished the 

 ceiling of the Paolina. At the end of 1585, after the accession of 

 Sixtus V. to the papal chair, Zuccaro was invited by Philip II. to 

 Spam to paint the Escurial, with a salary of 2000 scudi per annum. 

 He arrived at Madrid in January 15S6, and he was occupied in the 

 Escurial nearly three years, during which time he painted several 

 works in oil and in fresco, some of which however were immediately 

 afterwards removed or destroyed ; yet Zuccaro left Spain richly 

 rewarded. He returned to Rome at the end of 1588. In 1595 he 

 founded the Academy of St. Luke there, for which a charter had been 

 granted by Gregory XIII., and it was confirmed by Sixtus V. : he was 

 the first president. He wrote a book on the principles of painting, 

 sculpture, and architecture, entitled 'L'idea di Pittori, Scultori, e 

 Architetti,' and printed it in 1603 at Turin, with a dedication to the 

 Duke of Savoy. He published two other works at Bologna in 1608 

 one giving an account of his visit to Parma, ' La dimora, di Parma, 

 del Sig. Cav. Federigo Zuccaro;' the other giving an account of a 

 journey in Italy and hia stay at Parma, ' II passaggio per Italia colla 

 dimora di Parma, del Sig. Cav. Federigo Zuccaro.' He died in 1609, 

 the year following, at Ancona. Federigo Zuccaro, though a mannerist, 

 had great ability as a painter. He was also sculptor, poet, and archi- 

 tect, and he is said to have owed his success chiefly to his general 



